


trips in magenta

by tempalays



Series: deus ex machina [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt Peter Parker, Light Angst, Like 2 months after endgame, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is a Mess, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Canon, Protective Bucky Barnes, Uncle Bucky Barnes, bucky is trying SO hard, kind of, there is NO shipping here and NOTHING ROMANTIC dont be nastie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-26 23:36:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18727153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tempalays/pseuds/tempalays
Summary: “Hey Mr Barnes, I kno-w it’s inconvenient but,” Peter’s slurring his words, the pain of whatever he’s had done to him clearly more than he can deal with. “Sorry I gotta introduce m’self, don’t know if you even remember me, ‘m Spider-.”“Jesus, Peter.” Bucky sees Peter holding his side and figures it’s a stab wound or something, avoiding it as he scoops him up gently and brings him inside. “I’m sorry about my arm, it’s probably cold.”“You…rememberme?” Peter seems so satisfied with himself as Bucky picks him up, supporting Peter’s head with his shoulder, making sure to not nudge the hand holding his wound. The first thing that Bucky realises after he picks the boy up, is that Peter isn’t wearing a Spiderman suit.---Or; Peter's way of grieving ends up with him getting shot when he goes to places he shouldn't go to, and Bucky is the only person left in New York who he knows can help him.





	trips in magenta

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spacefleeting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacefleeting/gifts).



> ok well . this is certainly something.  
> ive been having a lot of post endgame feels. particularly about bucky basically looking out for peter given the minimal number of avengers now in new york. i sat down for eight hours and wrote this without stopping and its 4am right now so i think its basically a stream of consciousness at this point lol. i just want to get this out into the world but it will be edited at some point soon!
> 
> this is also my first fic published since 2015 :')  
> -  
> dedicated to mad for talking to me constantly over the past few days about this post endgame semi canon hell universe we've created that already has 8k written between us. love u lots xx

It doesn’t matter how many hours of therapy he goes through, how many years of memories are altered, how many times he exposes himself to try and get over his issues, the sound of thumping against walls and windows in the middle of the night will never not wake Bucky, wild eyes in a frenzy, sending him ticking over and turning him into something closer in resemblance to the Winter Soldier than he’d like and ever care to admit.

 

He’s reaching under the bed, grappling urgently underneath with his metal arm for the Sauer that for a decade rested beneath whatever surface he slept on. The seconds pass and its grip evades Bucky’s hand, his breath becoming ragged and panicked as he continues to search. It takes the recognisable clink of a metal against metal on the plates of his wrist for Bucky to realise that he doesn’t keep guns under his bed anymore, just a single switchblade for emergencies. (He downgraded after getting a cat, because he was scared she’d injure herself on a knife with an open blade resting underneath his bed, so really she was a force for him getting at least a bit of his shit together.)

 

Remembering that he’s not the same person he used to be, that he doesn’t keep guns underneath him anymore goes as far as to reassure Bucky that the banging against his fire escape isn’t a ghost from his past trying to catch up with him, but living in New York it could be anyone with any motives. The first thought is always _‘hydrahydrahdyra whatdothey want how did theyfind me’_ no matter what, and until he dies it probably always will. He glances at the analogue clock beside his bed and it reads back at him 3:24am, and he rationalises and tells himself (His therapist taught him to do it. Sometimes it works, mostly it doesn’t) that if Hydra wanted him dead, (if Hydra even still existed anymore, that is.) they both knew it would take more than a few man ambush of his Brooklyn Brownstone in the early hours of the morning to take Bucky out.

 

His apartment drops into silence for intervals of five seconds, then ten, then fifteen and the banging happens with less intensity each time and _‘Jesus Christ is someone dying on my fire escape’._ Once he realises that whatever is on the other side of the brick wall is probably in a worse state than he is, he flips the blade of knife and leaves his bedroom. The door opens into a small living room with just a few things, a leather couch, a television he doesn’t use often, a bookcase filled with knickknacks spanning the better half of a century and some old flowers on the window sill that he got on a Good Day- he’s been waiting for the next Good Day to get rid of them and buy some new ones. Once he realised that something that’s effectively already dead marks the times between him feeling vaguely like a human, Bucky realised very fast that he truly was never going to be able to get a enough running distance between himself and death, but the flowers are nice enough.  

 

Rebecca’s meowing loudly on the kitchen counter, peering into the fire escape and it’s comforting enough that whatever is there isn’t so bad that she's too scared to sit there and yowl at it, but regardless Bucky’s still unnerved and moves slowly around the corner of the living room and into the kitchen. The only light coming into the apartment is streaming inside from the West facing windows so when Bucky turns the corner, all he sees is a silhouette of someone laying across the fire escape fist clenched and resting against the pane of glass at the bottom of the door.

 

It’s obvious that whatever is outside is clearly not a threat, (Maybe a part of Bucky was hoping that for once he could not be the most dangerous thing in the room) and Bucky throws his knife on the side, the sound of it hitting the metal stovetop scaring Rebecca off the counter and into the other room. The door doesn’t have a key, just one of those metal safety bars and Bucky has to shove it forward open a few times before it clicks out of place and the door opens.

 

Before he sees who’s there, the first thing Bucky notices is the smell of blood that’s saturated into the air and he squirms at the familiarity of it; it’s a smell that’s trailed behind him for seventy years. You can take away his memories but you can’t take away the physical modifications that Hydra made.

 

It’s so dark that you can barely make anything out, but the clouds shift for a few moments and Bucky realises under the sudden moonlight that the body laying out across the metal grating of his fire escape belongs to Peter Parker.

 

Bucky realises at the same time that Peter’s eyes reach his, and he sighs contently knowing that someone’s come to his rescue and that he doesn’t have to wait until Bucky gets up in the morning and looks out of his fire escape window to see a half dead Spiderman laying across the stairs. “Hey Mr Barnes, I kno-w it’s inconvenient but,” Peter’s slurring his words, the pain of whatever he’s had done to him clearly more than he can deal with. “Sorry I gotta introduce m’self, don’t know if you even remember me, ‘m Spider-.”

 

“ _Jesus,_ Peter.” Bucky sees Peter holding his side and figures it’s a stab wound or something, avoiding it as he scoops him up gently and brings him inside. “I’m sorry about my arm, it’s probably cold.”

 

“You… _remember_ <i/> me?” Peter seems so content with himself as Bucky picks him up, supporting Peter’s head with his shoulder, making sure to not nudge the hand holding his wound. The first thing that Bucky realises after he picks the boy up, is that Peter isn’t wearing a Spiderman suit. At least not something that Bucky’s ever seen him in. It looks and feels like a loose jersey material, with a hood that looks vaguely like a Spiderman costume, with a zip going through the middle of what would cover Peter’s face. There’s gloves sewn onto the cuffs of the sleeves, and Bucky doesn’t understand what this is or why Peter’s wearing it, but that’s the least of his problems right now as he works out what to do next.

 

Once he’s inside the apartment he stands in the middle for a moment, surveying the room trying to figure out where the best place is to put Peter, and he ends up laying the kid down on the mess table, pushing a fruit bowl and some unopened mail onto a chair while Rebecca watches on from the side.  (Apparently they’re called ‘dining tables’ now but that reminds Bucky too much of the rich kids he used to dunk as a kid.)

 

Bucky places him down gently, sliding him out of his arms making sure that Peter’s head doesn’t hit against the table as he goes. “Before I patch you up, what happened to you kid?”

 

“‘m gonna need… more th’n just patching up.” Peter holds his side tighter as Bucky goes to flip the lights on across the room. His eyes take a second to adjust to the change and he hears Peter mumble a quiet _‘Shit’_ as his do the same.

 

There’s blood covering Peter’s clothes, that’s now dripping onto Bucky’s damn kitchen table, and Bucky was expecting maybe a broken bone, a laceration wound, something that doesn’t look like Peter just found himself in an urban warzone. Maybe it’s that Bucky’s only ever seen him in a red suit that hides any blood from view, but the way that it’s soaked into the jersey across his stomach and covers Peter’s hands makes it obvious to Bucky that he’s in a worse way than he thought.

 

“What _happened?”_

 

“Please don't b’mad Mr Barnes.” Peter doesn’t even attempt to tilt his head towards Bucky and instead lays on the table, his head unmoving, facing the ceiling. Bucky always knew that Peter’s just a kid, was the only one who even batted an eyelid back in Germany about it, but now that Peter Parker is laying on his kitchen table at four am asking Bucky not to be mad that he’s _injured,_ it scares him. On a good day he can just about look after him and his cat, on a bad day just his cat, and now he has a teenager that’s come to _him_ to stitch him up, out of all the people in New York City and it _scares_ him.

 

Bucky wants to tell Peter to just call him Bucky and call him stupid for asking him not to be mad but he remembers from when he was younger that Steve would do the exact same thing; come back from stupid fights all knocked around and ask Bucky to not be mad, as if back then Bucky would ever have been able to be.

 

“Kid, I’m not gonna be mad, I just need to know what happened to you so I can fix you up, alright?” Bucky doesn’t know how to be tender, or gentle or kind, but right now it doesn’t matter whether he knows how, because somehow he needs to be. He figures it should be about half way between the way he speaks to Rebecca when he wakes up, and his normal voice, but even then, how are you supposed to quantify what ‘half way between two tones’ is.

 

“ ‘got shot.”

 

Jesus _fuck._

 

“You got _shot?_ In the _stomach?”_ God, it’s not as if Bucky is generally unqualified to deal with gunshot wounds, he first learned how to clean and stitch ‘em in the war, and during Hydra he learnt how to stitch up wounds _efficiently_. Only his though, never anyone else’s.

Peter’s breathing become haggard as he shifts position, mumbling something unintelligible through the pain and even though Bucky’s done this tens of times before he finds his regular hand shaking for a moment as he runs through everything he needs to get and everything he needs to do.

  


Peter’s hand is cramping up from holding his stomach together so tightly for so long, and he lets go for a moment and switches hands, blood seeping through his fingers and onto the table. “It _hurts._ ”

 

Bucky reaches his hand into Peter’s hair, stroking it as he does his best to reassure the kid on his table to give him just a little while longer and it’ll be alright; he remembers doing this to someone before, but he can’t figure out who. “You’re gonna be peachy, I promise. I just need you to stay here for a little longer, and then I’m gonna patch you up and you can get some rest alright? I just need to stitch this nasty guy up and you’ll be on your way, I promise.” Bucky’s trying so goddamn hard to get this right, and now he’s realising what Sam meant when he told him that his progress would show in situations where it mattered most.

 

Peter is terrified, Bucky can see it in his eyes (as still as they are) and from how tightly Peter grabs his hand when Bucky reaches out to him. He winces the whole way through but Peter slowly manages turns his head to the side, his bones cracking while he does it. “Please don’t leave me.”

 

“I’m not going anywhere Peter, I promise.” Bucky hasn’t made a promise to anyone in longer than he can remember, but he’s happy to do this for Peter. They both know why he asked, but Bucky won’t bring it up unless Peter does- they’ve both lost people. He squeezes Peter’s hand and runs to the bathroom to grab his first aid kit. (Not the average person’s first aid kit, but a first aid kit nonetheless.) “Thank you.”

 

If this was the 40’s you’d take two swigs of the strongest thing you could find for the pain and get it over with but _goddamn_ he’s not about to give this kid Jack Daniel’s, and if it was the Winter Soldier he’d stitch himself back up and continue to complete his mission objective, the concept of pain unfamiliar and long since programmed out of his body.

 

He doesn’t know the difference between ibuprofen and paracetamol or whether they’d help a _gunshot wound_  but he grabs a bottle of Aspirin anyway, figuring that the best cast scenario is that it works, or that doesn’t do anything but the fact that he took something tricks him into feeling less pain. The first aid kit has tweezers, surgical thread, gauze and whatever else he might need, but he hopes that that he can just pull the bullet out, disinfect it and stitch it up.

 

Rebecca is still sitting on the kitchen counter watching Peter and watching Bucky as he comes out with all the supplies.

 

“Listen kid, I’ve got some Aspirin, maybe it’ll do something, maybe it won’t but I’m gonna tell you straight and let you know that this will probably be the most painful thing you’ve ever gone through, but it won’t last long, and you’ll be fine.” Peter grunts in response, as Bucky comes over with a pair of scissors to cut away his clothes.

 

When Peter lifts his hand away, the blood has stopped weeping from the wound but Bucky’s not sure what’s going to happen once he pulls the bullet out. It’s just one, thank God, and it hasn’t shattered and there’s not shrapnel, and it doesn’t look like it’s deep enough to have gotten any organs. “In terms of gunshot wounds to the stomach, this is the best it can be, good job kiddo.” Bucky’s pulling the gloves on when he realises that there’s no disinfectant in his ramshackle first aid kit which means that it’s going to to have to be vodka. Bucky’s not happy about it, it only means causing Peter more pain but if he doesn’t clean it out then he’s just risking more pain in the future from infection.

 

He grabs a bottle of some Russian brand that been sitting in a cupboard since he moved in and brings it over to the table, Peter staring at him as he unscrews the cap. “You’re not… drinking that right?”

 

Bucky snorts, placing the bottle onto the table as he goes for the tweezers from the box. “It’s to wash this wound out.”

 

“Huh.”

 

Bucky’s getting everything ready so he can get this over and done with as soon as possible, and keep Peter in as little pain as he can, and he figures that if he explains the procedure the kid might feel more comfortable. “So, this is the plan. I’m gonna pull this bullet out of your stomach, flush it out with vodka, stitch you up, and then put you on my couch so you can sleep. Got it?” Peter nods at him, Bucky squeezing his hand one last time before he starts.

 

“How much ‘sit gonna hurt, Mr Barnes.”

 

Bucky doesn’t want to lie to him, and he hears his Mom’s voice in his head- ‘If he’s old enough to get shot in the stomach he’s old enough to deal with the consequences’, but he just doesn’t want to lie, so he tells him the truth. “More than anything you’ve ever felt, but it’ll be over soon.”

 

Peter smiles softly. “Nah, it won’t. Go Mr Barnes.” And out of this whole debacle, Peter remaining tightlipped, talking about Tony Stark but not _literally_ talking about him remains the most difficult thing that Bucky has to do. This kid has lost every single father figure in his life and he's not even eighteen, and Bucky is filled with such a strong desire to protect him and make sure that he’s happy and safe and alright.

 

Bucky pulls the bullet out and Peter _wails._ His cries are filled with so much sheer pain that they remind Bucky of his own but he doesn’t have time to stop, so he forces himself to keep going, reminding himself that the faster he gets it done the faster Peter will stop being in pain. Pulling the bullet out is the most painful part, and he drops it and the tweezers onto the table as Peter tries to regulate his breathing. “You’re doing great, kid. I just need to flush it out now and then we’re over half way there.”. Bucky sees Peter try and not and takes that as the sign to start the next part of the procedure. The cap is already unscrewed, so he unwraps some of the gauze and just pours a few ounces of Vodka onto the wound. Peter has since moved his hand to cover his mouth, and the burning of alcohol against flesh making him cry over and over again, so much so that he’s started to cry, tears running down his face and mixing with the dried blood on his hands, making a light red liquid run down his neck. Peter stops crying once Bucky gets the gauze and starts applying pressure, mopping up a concoction of blood and alcohol, and Bucky wishes that this wasn’t the first time he had encountered the combination of blood and vodka in this context.

 

“You’re over half way, alright? I just need to do a few stitches, just three or four and then you’ll be done.” Bucky reaches over and squeezes Peter’s hand, and gets a weak squeeze in return. The kid’s sweating, covered in blood and looks pale as hell and Bucky just wants to finish this up, grab a cloth and clean his face and stomach up, get him some water and let him get some rest. Once Peter’s less dazed he’ll ask him what happened, ask him who shot him, and he’ll deal with the rest.

 

Bucky reckons it won't be more than four stitches to close the wound up, and the motions of stitching up a wound are embound into his muscle memory the same way pulling the trigger of a gun is, and he’s not proud of it but if it can help people then maybe it makes him less of a monster, just this one time. He switches the side he works on so that Peter is spared from having Bucky’s cold metallic fingers hold his skin in place, so he uses his left hand to stitch and his right hand to close the wound, barely even thinking about his as his hands move on their own. He ties up the last one, cuts the thread, and pulls off the latex surgical gloves.

 

“You’re all done, Peter. I’m gonna get some warm water and soap and clean what I can, is that alright with you?” Now that Peter’s not seeping blood onto Bucky’s table, some of the colour has returned to his face, and he says a quiet _‘yeah’_ , as Rebecca comes over and smells his hair, pushing her nose into it.

 

When Bucky comes back, he comes with a glass of water he’ll give Peter once he can sit up, a plastic bowl of warm soapy water, and one of those flannels that come as a hard rock that expands in water. He went to Coney Island with Sam a few months ago and they did one of those buck for a toy machines, where you twist the lever and a plastic ball with a prize comes out, and Bucky got this shitty flannel that he secretly loved watching unfurl in the bowl of water he threw it in.

 

He ends up having to cut Peter out of the bloody mess he’s laying it, throwing the fabric to the side of the table; he’ll clear it up once Peter’s asleep. The apartment is silent now, the only sounds coming from Bucky squeezing the excess water into the bowl as he goes to wipe Peter’s head.

 

He goes around Peter’s hairline first, gently mopping away the sweat and somehow the blood that’s made its way up to it, and Bucky can tell that it’s the first time in a long time that someone’s taken care of Peter and treated him like what he is - a seventeen year old kid thats vulnerable and gentle and much too smart for his own good, _‘That needs to be treated like a seventeen year old kid, Jesus’._

 

“Thank you, Mr Barnes.”

 

“You can just call me Bucky, y’know.” Bucky scrunches his nose and goes in to dab away some dried blood stuck on Peter’s cheek.

 

“Alright, thank you Bucky.” They sit there in silence for a while, Bucky wiping away the mess from his face, and then wiping the blood caked across Peter’s stomach. He has to hold the flannel cloth against his stomach just to work through the blood, before going back multiple times until he can start to see Peter’s skin again. “I thought you had all those Spiderman suits to keep you protected. What happened today kid?” Bucky’s voice is haggard with exhaustion as he squeezes bloodied water back into the bowl.

 

Peter’s silent for a few moments, before his chest shudders in a way that Bucky recognises all too well. “I just… I wanted to go out for once. Without being reminded of Mr-... him.” Peter’s voice is wet and he turns his face away. Bucky has no way of knowing how much Tony’s death has affected him. Hell, the last time Bucky saw Peter was at the funeral and even then, that was a few months ago. He doesn’t know much about how mental health things work for kids, but he knows enough to know that Peter should be seeing a therapist or something.

 

“Listen, Peter. I know what it’s like to walk around with a constant reminder of something you want to forget,” Bucky taps his metallic fingers on the table. “But you… your suits… they’re a labour of love. It’s hard losing people that we love, regardless of how we lose them, but when you put that suit on, yeah, it’s a constant reminder of Tony. But it’s also a constant reminder of how much he cared for you. Him and his dad were exactly the same th-”

 

“You knew his _dad?”_

 

“Yeah, kid. But anyway, Tony and Howard. They were the same. They never could tell you how they felt, but they’d show it through all those pieces of junk they both made. And yeah, in the moment, it’s never enough, but it’s what you have. Tony poured his heart and soul into those suits, and you should wear them with pride, y’know? It’s like he’s protecting you from beyond the grave.” Peter sighs. It’s difficult. Bucky knows its difficult but he also knows that everyone needs to get through their traumas, and that if Peter needs help then he’ll help. _‘Goddamn I sound like Sam.’_

 

“But how did you get shot?”

 

“I just… I went to Hell’s Kitchen. I got shot. End of story.” _Hell’s Kitchen?_ Bucky thought that when Peter called himself the ‘friendly neighbourhood Spiderman’ he meant that he’d be staying in Queen’s but Hell’s Kitchen… it wasn’t around when he was last here but Bucky knows enough now to know that the sort of threat that they, _Avengers_ types, deal with, and the threats that come with traipsing into Hell’s Kitchen couldn’t be more different.

 

“That’s clearly not the end of the story though, because you ended up on my fire exit, bleeding out. Why me.”

 

“I mean. I managed to travel across from Hell’s Kitchen to here. I put some webs over the gunshot to try and stop it from killing me or whatever but by the time you found me I’m pretty sure the webs were gone.” Peter yawns, and tips his head back onto the table. Bucky’s not convinced. Hell’s Kitchen and Queen’s aren’t exactly close. He knows that Strange is between them but he can’t imagine he was involved somehow, so he has to go on the merit that Parker’s telling him the truth. He can’t figure out if that seems likely or not yet. “There’s no one here. Sam lives in DC, Clint lives God knows where, Scott’s in San Francisco, during that whole Germany thing… half the people who I was meant to be fighting with are dead now. It’s not exactly like I could have gone to Metro General and said ‘Hey I’m seventeen and I have a gunshot wound, could you guys help me out.’. Other than you and  Stephen… I’m sorry for disturbing you. It won’t happen again Mr Barnes.” Peter’s embarrassed, refusing to look at Bucky, feeling too guilty that he showed up at Bucky’s apartment, banging on the walls because he’d been shot and needed help. Peter’s made it clear it was out of necessity but it doesn’t stop Bucky from thinking that maybe, he can look out for this kid.

 

“Who was it who shot you.”

 

“I don’t know… these Vietnamese guys. It was in a warehouse in Hell’s Kitchen.”

 

The clock on the wall says that it’s pushing five thirty, and Bucky wants to get the kid asleep so that he can at least rest of some of this injury because it’ll hurt like a bitch once it starts to heal properly.“I thought you stuck around Queen’s getting petty thieves, kid. Why Hell’s Kitchen?”

 

Bucky sighs, pushing his chair back and scooping Peter up into his arms, not trusting his ability to walk around yet. “You need to stay out of Hell’s Kitchen.”.

 

Peter doesn’t argue, they both know Bucky is right and if this was the best version of a stomach wound Peter could get, part of him doesn’t want to risk it again. Peter mumbles a quiet _‘Yeah.’_ as Bucky puts him down on the couch.

 

“You can sleep on here, I’ll grab you a pillow and comforter.” Once Peter’s on the couch without any risk of falling off, Bucky runs into his bedroom and grabs a spare t-shirt for him, the pillow from his bed and a blanket from the closet. He’s got a spare blanket for winter and the cold makes his arm ache, but when you live on your own with the bare necessities you don’t think to buy more than one pillow, but he doesn’t mind sleeping without one tonight.

 

Once he comes back out, Peter’s already asleep, but Bucky still places his head on top of the pillow anyway and gently drapes the maroon blanket over him. So this is what its like to be _gentle._

If he’s too hot he can always throw it off but Bucky doubts the temperature will be enough to wake Peter up, after he fell asleep with the lights on in the first place.  

 

Once he flips off the light, he says a quiet _‘Goodnight, Peter Parker’_ and gets a grunt in reply; maybe Peter wasn’t asleep this whole time. Bucky doesn’t blame him though.

 

There’s seventeen year old with a bullet hole in his stomach asleep on his couch, his kitchen table is covered in blood and has a quarter empty bottle of vodka covered in bloody fingerprints and a freshly opened gauze packet on the table, and if anyone were to come it they’d call murder or something related to it, but somehow Bucky Barnes feels like more of a person than he has in months, even if he wishes to death that it didn’t have to happen this way.

 

-

 

Peter goes back home the next day, and two weeks later (with a suit) goes back to finish a job that he tried to start. The warehouse is empty. No signs of life, no signs of the operation that was there a fortnight prior. Peter figures it’s not a stretch to assume that Bucky was involved, somehow.

**Author's Note:**

> the references to hells kitchen were on purpose
> 
> :)


End file.
